Stew Haag, W4MO – January 11, 2026

From Mark Haag:
Stewart Earl (Stew) Haag was born on 3/31/31, a nice and easy to remember date, in Louisville, KY. He grew up within a several block radius in Louisville. His parents were Edward William (Eddie) Haag and Ruth Elizabeth Squire. He was one of two boys of Ruth and Eddie. He attended high school at DuPont Manual (trade school at the time), graduating in January of 1949. Shortly after graduation, he started working for Bell Telephone in Louisville and completed his working career there.
During his time at Bell, he prided himself on the fact that he helped set up the first ever national TV broadcast of the Kentucky Derby. This required him to fix a number of loaned microwave relay systems to set up the number of hops needed to make the broadcast a reality.
He was married to Esther Elizabeth Bielefeld in December of 1956. They have four children – Mark (Sharpsburg, GA), Leah (Louisville, KY), David (Venice, FL) and Stewart Robert (Louisville, KY). Esther passed away in August of 1997. Stew has eight grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.
In the amateur radio world, Stew was very proud of the fact that he got his Extra Class license by copying code at 20WPM while a bunch of other Speed Scientific School graduates couldn’t. (Speed Scientific is the engineering school of the University of Louisville (the MIT of the Louisville area in that day). Stew held his Amateur Extra for a number of years under the call sign of W4MOP (August 1947). Whiskey four Meat Onions and Potatoes, the STEW station. In addition, Stew had an Advanced Radio Telephone license. In 2016, the W4MO call became available and Stew was granted this vanity call sign.
Over the years in Louisville he operated 6m, 2m and 432 repeaters. He was one of the early operators of the OSCAR satellites. He loved to attend the Cincinnati Hamfest, even when the weather didn’t cooperate, which was most years. He also enjoyed attending the Central States Conventions and other hamfests in the KY and IN area. Stew had memorable adventures to Germany for the Friedrichshafen hamfest. His friend Zippie would typically meet him there and they would travel around Germany to visit the various “Haag” towns.

From Frank Wroblewski, W2XYZ:
We can also note that Stew was one of the first members of TARC and was very instrumental in establishing our repeater in Englewood, originally with all his own equipment.  He also introduced the club to the latest technology at the time, such as Windows 10, Flex Radios, and the WSPR Network, as well as DMR repeaters and DMR hotspots.  Stew was always ready to help others with his time and often with his equipment.  He was licensed for nearly 80 years, first getting licensed in 1947.

From San Yoder, K3SY:
I initially met Stew at the first meeting of TARC that I attended in 2006. We quickly became friends, and he was always willing to help with any radio/computer problems I encountered. His workshop was always open for consultation.
Stew served as president of TARC for four years from 2008 to 2011. He especially loved to introduce new technology to the club.
Some of the more memorable moments with Stew happened at breakfast at Peaches. He was quick to set you straight if you expressed an opinion about ham radio or any other subject that he thought might be out-of-line. I will not forget his go-to breakfast order – scrambled eggs with grits on top. He would then proceed to unscrew the cap from the pepper shaker and blacken the entire top of his food.

From Jack Sproat, W4JS:
Here are some incidents of Stew giving Yuli and me very kind assistance.
I had a Henry 3-K full bore amp for several years.  One day, it gave symptoms of not feeling well, so I called Stew and he was soon at our doorstep.  We opened up the outer cover, Stew ran a couple tests and determined that the bleeder resistor in the power supply was shot.  He hopped into his car, drove up to Sarasota Electronics (a mom and pop operation now gone), bought a replacement resistor, returned here, installed the resistor, and we were back in business–with charge  for “parts, shipment and services”
One time I started using my transceiver and, for some reason, it had a SWR of infinity on 10 meters.  So, I called Stew for assistance and he came right down.  We opened up the outer cover but couldn’t determine the cause, so I was ready to send the rig to ICOM for service.  But first I gave it another trial while checking the controls.  As I switched through the bands, I noted that the rig indicated “ANT 1” was shown for all bands, except for 10 meters, which showed “ANT2”.  As there was no antenna connected to the ANT 2 output, the SWR was infinity.  I called Stew after he got home and joked that two Old Extras missed that easy fix to my problem.
In 2009, Yuli and I took a Holland-America Central America cruise, sailing from Tampa Bay Port, and Stew offered to take us to the port and pick us up upon our return.  When we got back close enough to the Florida coast, we called Stew and gave him a probable time for us to be picked up.  After some confusion Stew found his way to the pick-up area. It sure was great to see him.

We miss you Stew!